


til then we'll knock around and see

by bambirouge



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, M/M, but some light ones too, johnmark are, sum heavy feelings ig
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:40:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25745239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bambirouge/pseuds/bambirouge
Summary: It’s ten fifteen at night, and Mark is looking at the lava lamp he bought in eighth grade, blue and pink because those were Mark and Johnny’s favorite colors.He’s remembering Johnny back then with his hair covering one eye, with his acne and bad jokes, so nice to Mark even though Mark was a total shrimp who couldn’t be bothered to wear anything but basketball shorts and beat-up Reeboks. Mark’s not ashamed to admit that his life would probably suck if Johnny hadn’t been in it. He gave up on disconnecting his happiness from Johnny a long time ago.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 10
Kudos: 156





	til then we'll knock around and see

**Author's Note:**

> I am literally unable look at this for another second so here I am, yeeting it into the void completely unedited
> 
> quick note - in this fic, johnny and mark are only two years apart. mark is 20 and johnny is 22.
> 
> title is from "fallingforyou" by the 1975
> 
> enjoy! <3

It’s ten fifteen at night, and Mark is looking at the lava lamp he bought in eighth grade, blue and pink because those were Mark and Johnny’s favorite colors.

He’s remembering Johnny back then with his hair covering one eye, with his acne and bad jokes, so _nice_ to Mark even though Mark was a total shrimp who couldn’t be bothered to wear anything but basketball shorts and beat-up Reeboks. Mark’s not ashamed to admit that his life would probably suck if Johnny hadn’t been in it. He gave up on disconnecting his happiness from Johnny a long time ago.

Which is why he lies on his bed, several tabs of his favorite tried-and-true porn open on his laptop, shorts shoved down and dick completely soft. He’s been using sex as a distraction lately, but tonight he can’t stop thinking about how Johnny’s voice cracked when he told Mark the news.

The _News._ Fuck. What the hell is he gonna do?

Mark presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, so hard that he sees spots. They itch like he’s been crying, but in reality he’s just coming down from a caffeine high—he’s taken to drinking a second cup of coffee after dinner, like a fucking idiot. It gives him a brief reprieve from that little voice in his head telling him to go back to therapy.

He pulls up his shorts and reaches for the drawer of his bedside table to dig around for some chapstick, then stares at the ceiling as he smears it on. He’s never hated summer this much before.

_Tak tak tak!_

Mark scrambles to close the lid of his laptop but Johnny is already laughing at him through the window, one hand pressed to the glass. Mark opens it even though he feels like he’s swallowed a wasp’s nest.

“Dude,” Johnny wheezes. “Were you just jerking off?”

“No!” Mark pouts. “I mean, maybe, but—I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh, my God. You were.” Johnny grips the window sill with one hand, bending over to catch his breath. “You seriously looked like you were having an existential crisis. I almost didn’t wanna disturb you.”

“Fuck off! Maybe I was just—” Mark waves his hands around uselessly. “—just—”

“Just what?”

“—fantasizing!” He’s blushing. Shit. “Shut up. What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Spying on you.” Johnny grins. “Nah, I was gonna get tacos. Wanna come?”

Mark looks at Johnny at the window. He glances back briefly at the lava lamp on the table, at the goo inside it floating around.

“Yeah,” he says. “Gimme a sec.”

He pulls on a sweatshirt and then tiptoes into the hallway even though he knows his housemates are awake still. Johnny is at the door, waiting in his Hanyang University hoodie with the strings tied in a bow under his chin. Mark’s stomach clenches.

“Are we driving?”

“Yep.” Johnny’s keys are still hanging from that ratty Totoro lanyard, also bought with Mark on one of their trips to the mall. No one told Mark that this was part of getting older—looking up one day and realizing the objects of your everyday life have become tattered.

“Ugh, it smells like ass in here.”

“Sorry.” Johnny flips down the sun visor, checking his teeth in the mirror. “Me n’ Jaehyun wanted to hotbox this baby one last time.”

He catches himself, Mark can tell; he aborts the last letter of the last word. They’re trying not to talk about it. They _agreed_ to try not to talk about it at the beginning of the summer, back when Mark thought he’d be able to ignore the Hulk punch to the gut that comes with every time he sees Johnny now. But it’s a double-edged sword, because the moment Johnny starts the engine and turns on the stereo, Mark feels like he could give up coffee and porn altogether—Johnny’s a distraction in himself, even when he’s distracting Mark from the fact that he’s going to be gone by Wednesday morning.

“Pork?” Johnny asks him when they pull into the parking lot.

“Ye,” Mark replies, but as he's opening Venmo on his phone Johnny says,

“I got it.”

Mark gives him a side-eye. “For real?”

“Yeah.” Johnny gets out of the car and Mark watches him stretch as he walks over to the taco truck. He doesn’t pay for both of them, usually. Something must be up.

Mark can’t tell if it’s creepy to take candid pics of your best friend all the time, but he hasn’t been able to stop this summer. _It’s just because you care about him,_ he justifies as he pulls out his phone again and snaps a shot of Johnny’s profile, strong-featured, flooded with light from inside the truck. _It’s because you’ll miss him._ Not like Mark has even looked at any of the photos he’s taken yet—he doesn’t know if he ever will, or if the sole purpose of taking them was to fight off the fear of forgetting for just a few seconds. Maybe he’ll tell Johnny about them someday, after he’s gone through with this whole thing. Mark hopes they’ll still be in touch, then.

“Is something up?” he asks Johnny as they drive back to the house. “You’re being, like...quiet.”

“What?” Johnny looks distracted. Donghyuck once told Mark that this is an Aquarius Thing, but something about the heaviness in Johnny’s eyes isn’t sitting well. They’re almost unfocused, eyelids drooping as he gazes at the road.

“Forget it,” Mark says.

“No, I...you’re right.” Johnny sighs as they pull up to the house. “There is something, I just don’t think I can talk about it yet.”

Mark’s spidey senses are tingling at full blast, but he forces himself to stay calm. The last time Johnny acted like this was right before he broke the News, and Mark doesn’t think he can take anything else; not tonight, not when he already wasted the entire day thinking about what he’s going to say to Johnny at the airport.

“Okay,” Mark replies, because he’s a good friend, and doesn’t want Johnny to worry. “I guess...tell me when you’re ready?”

“I will.” Johnny half-smiles at him before exiting the car, and for a moment Mark just sits in the passenger seat, holding on.

They end up on the roof like always. Like always, Johnny smacks Mark’s butt as he climbs out the kitchen window, then laughs until he’s breathless when Mark’s pout bends into a grin. He touches Mark so carelessly, like he doesn’t realize how Mark’s heart has always been on a string for him, although Mark knows that he knows it is.

“And then,” Johnny giggles after they’ve finished their tacos, “Jaehyun points at one of the fish in the pond and goes, ‘bro, I think that’s a fucking Magikarp.’”

Mark claps his hands, falling backward and gasping for air. _“Dude!”_

“We were high as shit! And we’d been playing Pokémon Go, like, all fucking day.” Johnny wipes the corner of his eye. He’s smiling so his gums are visible and Mark can’t stop staring at the shape of his front teeth. “So he’s all, ‘we gotta catch it’ and kneels down at the edge of the pond, but the fish is, like, a little too far for him to reach. Then he makes this desperate grab at it but of course the momentum is too much and he just goes fucking sailing head-first into the pond.”

Mark explodes into laughter, clutching his stomach and rolling around like he’s dying. Johnny watches him as he leans back on his elbows.

“I had to pull him out because he couldn’t figure out how to climb back up. We were _zonked_.”

“Oh, God,” Mark rasps, “oh, fuck, I can’t breathe.”

“So fucking funny.” Johnny nudges Mark’s ribs with his foot. “You good, man?”

Mark nods, but makes no moves to sit back up. “I’m good. Holy shit.” He coughs a few times, one hand still resting on his belly. “Well, I’m glad it was a good last time.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it really was.”

Johnny lies down next to him, close enough that Mark can hear him breathing. The cicadas whir on endlessly, and for the umpteenth time, Mark thinks about what it’s going to be like to do this alone.

Dread creeps back in until the last butterflies of laughter are gone.

“Remember when we went to the fair?” Marks asks, softly.

Johnny hums. “Mm, like, four years ago?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah. Of course I remember.”

“And you n’ me n’ Taeyong went on the ferris wheel?”

“And Taeyong had to cover his eyes the whole time?”

“Yeah,” Mark laughs. “This kinda reminds me of that.”

Johnny grins, teasing. “Of Taeyong’s fear of heights?”

“No, dude—!” Mark shoves him, and Johnny pinches him back, and for a moment they fall into familiar competition. When Mark calls a truce, there’s much less space between them than there was before.

“I mean, like,” Mark continues, trying not to hyperfixate on Johnny’s arm hair tickling his elbow, “it’s so dark up here. I just remember that it was really dark and quiet when we got to the top.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean.”

It comes to Mark in flashes as he lies there; the memories of Johnny’s silhouette at the top of the ferris wheel, of rainbow droplets shaking from Johnny’s hair as he surfaces from the lake, of Johnny bent over his homework on the floor, of Johnny stealing bulgogi off Mark’s dinner plate, _Johnny Johnny Johnny_. Mark wants to say the word, let his lips round the ‘o’ and close over the ‘n’ and finish the ‘y’ in a grin. But Johnny beats him to the punch.

“Mark?” he murmurs.

Mark love-hates when he says his name like that, love-hates the grave importance dripping from every letter. Scary and thrilling. Mark takes a breath and holds it.

“Yeah?”

He turns his head so he’s looking at Johnny, who’s looking at him. Mark wishes he could see Johnny’s face more clearly—or maybe he doesn’t, because what he can see is scaring him shitless. Johnny’s eyelashes flick down and Mark’s breath feels like spider silk.

“What are we doing?” Mark whispers.

“I don’t know,” Johnny whispers back, then he leans over and kisses him.

It’s warm. Warm at his mouth, where Johnny’s lips are, and warm where their knees brush. Johnny seems hesitant to touch him, and Mark can’t tell if it’s for his sake or Johnny’s own but he knows that if they’re doing this he needs Johnny’s hands all over him.

Are they really doing this?

“Are we really doing this?” Mark breathes. Johnny shakes his head, a tiny motion.

“I don’t know,” he repeats, centimeters from Mark’s lips. “Do you want to?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Which one? ‘Yeah’ or ‘you think so’?”

 _“Yes,”_ Mark says, with maybe the most conviction that he’s ever said anything, and crushes their mouths together again.

The feeling is just as strange as the first time, but Mark leans into it, leans into Johnny’s body and welcomes his arm around his waist. Kissing Johnny is _hot._ Johnny’s hot in general—Mark knows because he’s been acutely aware of every hot thing Johnny has done over the last nine years. But the taste of his tongue sends Mark to a higher plane, to that place in a good dream right before you wake up. Johnny’s making all these little _‘mm’_ noises and it’s driving Mark up the wall, how deep his voice is, how Mark can feel the vibration in his hand as he presses it to Johnny’s back.

“Fuck,” Johnny says, drawing away. “I—this is so—”

“—Hot. Weird.” Mark smiles, scrunching his nose. “Weird-hot.”

“Yeah.” Johnny laughs. There, detached from Mark’s lips, he’s just Johnny again; Mark’s childhood friend, gorgeous and unattainable, save for the fact that he’s currently wrapped in Mark’s arms. “It _is_ weird. I was worried it was just me.”

Mark freezes. “Do you want to stop?”

“No! No, no. I...” Johnny doesn’t move, he just sweeps his eyes over Mark’s face, scanning. “It’s _you,_ y’know? I just can’t believe I’m making out with you right now.”

“Oh, my God. Believe me, I know.”

Johnny still looks dazed, and admittedly Mark’s head is spinning from how fast the air between them has shifted. He’s disoriented, watching the age-old title over Johnny’s head change from _best friend_ to _???._

“It’s...really turning me on,” Johnny says. “The fact that it’s you.”

Mark barely resists a full-body twitch. “Oh, word?”

“Word.” Johnny’s voice is low and heady as he looks back at Mark’s mouth. He kisses him again, and _God,_ Mark can already feel this memory driving a deep groove down his brain; Johnny’s imprint on each one of his senses leaves him raw and needy. Mark doesn’t know how it happens but suddenly their legs are tangling together, and Johnny’s hands travel a little lower, and someone’s thigh presses up and in and all at once Mark has the passionate need to drag Johnny down to his bedroom.

“Should we maybe talk about this?” he asks before he can stop himself. Johnny’s face slips into a mix of hesitation and remembrance, like he’s jolting back to reality—Mark wonders if he’s been using sex to forget, too. _Why else would he be kissing you right now?_ asks that big, uncertain thing follows Mark around like a disease.

“Um...” Johnny swallows. “Actually, this _is_ the thing I wanted to talk about.”

Mark’s heart stutters. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the thing I _couldn’t_ talk about.”

It hangs between them like a bullet in the air. Mark shakes his head.

“I don’t understand. You wanted to talk about...kissing me?”

“It’s bigger than that.” Johnny’s thumb is absently stroking half-moons into Mark’s lower back and he can’t concentrate; Johnny is once again acting as the perfect distraction to himself. “I don’t really know how to say it, even. It’s, like, that big.”

“Wait, hold up.” Mark takes a shaky breath. “If. If you’re about to tell me that you—you—”

Johnny’s thumb stops, everything stops. Mark’s thoughts stop, like his head has had all that it can take for the day, for the _year,_ thank you very much. He can’t get the rest of the sentence out but he thinks that Johnny will be able to put the pieces together—from the way he knows Mark down to his foundation to the way Mark is looking directly into his eyes right now. Mark never looks at him like this. There’s always something a little too unsafe about it. 

“I don’t know what I’m about to tell you,” Johnny says, carefully, and at last, Mark looks away. “This is definitely not how I thought tonight would go.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Mark shakes his head. “We’ve hung out, like, twice a week since high school. Why would tonight be any different?”

“So we’re still not talking about it?”

That catches Mark off guard. He can’t bring himself to answer, and Johnny lets go of him.

“Mark, I’m moving in six days. To _Seoul._ I think we should stop pretending it’s not happening.”

“But we agreed not to talk about it.”

“That was two months ago.” Johnny sits up and runs a hand through his hair. “Don’t you think things have changed since then?” He shakes his head. “I’ve just been thinking, like, maybe we should’ve made this summer different _because_ I’m leaving.”

Mark sits up along with him. “Dude, Johnny, if you have something to say, please just say it. I can’t keep up with—”

“—I think I have feelings for you.”

Mark’s entire body goes stiller than he’s ever been in his life. Johnny’s looking at him again, but Mark couldn’t hazard a guess as to what he’s thinking. Mark’s floating above the roof, out of his body, watching himself and Johnny stare each other down.

“What?” he croaks.

“I mean, I don’t _think_. I know, actually. I’ve known for a while.”

Mark can’t stop looking at him. “How long?”

“When you came back from Korea two summers ago. I...” Johnny pushes a laugh out through his nose. “...It kind of hit me over the head.”

“Are you serious? Two _years?”_

“Yeah.”

That scary, shapeless thing that’s been following Mark around for God knows how long settles in the space between them, which is widening by the minute. Mark feels like a tidal wave has turned him on his head and he can’t tell where the surface is, he’s just whirling around underwater and holding his breath.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Probably the same reason you didn’t.”

“The same reaso—why do you think _I_ didn’t say anything?”

Johnny smiles. “So many questions.”

“I think I kinda have a right to ask.” Mark hugs his knees to his chest. “I’ve literally spent the whole summer thinking about how I’m gonna move on when you leave, and, like, trying to figure out how to stop having feelings for you, and reliving every time over the past nine years that I could’ve told you I’m, y’know, basically in love with you or whatever. And now you drop this fucking bomb on me?”

In his peripheral, Mark can see Johnny pause. He seems stunned, staring into space for a silent moment before he turns back to Mark. Mark watches, heart pounding, as a familiar smile creeps into the corners of his mouth.

“You’re in love with me?”

“Yeah. I guess.” Mark does one jazz hand. “Surprise.”

“I—me too.”

Mark’s breath hitches. “Wait, actually?”

“Yeah.”

He looks so _real_ , kind of nervous, hair still messed up from Mark tugging on it. Mark’s nervous, too, but he’s used to it; seeing timidness on Johnny’s face is jarring enough that it yanks Mark back down to Earth.

“What do we do now?” Mark asks.

“Well...” Johnny tilts his head to the side. “We don’t really have much time.”

“I know.”

“We could just try to go back to normal until I leave. If that’s what you want.” Johnny throws Mark a cautious glance. “Or...”

It’s unclear what he’s suggesting, but Mark doesn’t think he could look Johnny in the eye again if they tried to put all this behind them. And Johnny’s right there, willing, tangible. Mark already knows what he wants, but he asks anyway.

“Which way do you think will hurt more?”

Johnny opens his mouth, then closes it. He looks at Mark like he’s calculating, but for all Mark knows, he could be searching for the best way to let him down easy. He doesn’t.

He kisses him.

All at once the dam is broken—the sickly sweetness of amber-colored affection comes rushing up Mark’s throat after so many years of being tamped down, and Mark hopes that Johnny can taste it on his tongue. It’s a messenger of all the things he doesn’t have time to say. 

“Your room?” Johnny breathes, and Mark nods frantically, scrambling back toward the window before the night catches up to them.

Mark’s sure his housemates are asleep by now but he doesn’t give a flying fuck. He pushes Johnny up against the wall by the stairs and kisses him stupid, unrelenting until they’re panting into each other’s mouths and pawing at each other’s clothes. When they make it to Mark’s room, Johnny’s shirt is already rucked up around his torso—Mark’s seen the smooth skin there a hundred times, but this is the first instance that he’s allowed himself to stare. Johnny sees him looking and smiles fondly; he takes hold of Mark’s wrist and guides his hand over to his stomach, where he leads it up his shirt and past his ribs. It’s a devastating change of pace, and Mark salivates at the sight of both their hands under Johnny’s shirt, sliding over his chest. Johnny has always been so deliberate, and when he catches Mark’s eyes his intentions are laid bare.

“You drive me fucking insane,” Mark tells him. Johnny grins in response.

“That was my evil plan all along.” He cups Mark’s jaw with his other hand and kisses him deeply, wetly, _deliberately_. “But are you kidding? Look at you.”

Johnny slips his thumb into Mark’s mouth and Mark closes his lips around it, stroking it with his tongue. Johnny lets out a slow exhale through gritted teeth.

“You’re burning me up.”

Mark draws a sharp breath as he pulls off Johnny’s thumb. There, with Johnny gazing at him through hooded eyes, he feels more awake than he’s been all summer.

“Can I suck you off?”

“Holy fuck. Yes.”

He kisses Johnny to the bed and then pushes him down on it, mumbling an _ohshitsorry_ when his laptop gets in the way. Johnny chuckles.

“Were you really jerking off earlier?”

Mark pouts as he puts his laptop on his desk in the corner. “I was trying to, until some asshole came knocking on my window.”

“What a dick move.”

Johnny pulls Mark into his lap and they end up lying back, rutting against each other in desperate motions, trying not to make the bed squeak. Mark loses his shirt, then Johnny loses his, and everything feels so new; Mark’s had his fair share of fooling around but the warm expanse of Johnny’s skin makes him feel high like it’s the first time.

“Wow,” Mark pants when his hand finds Johnny’s dick through his jeans. “You’re really hard.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re really hot.”

“Aw, stop.” Normally, this is when Mark might deliver a punch to Johnny’s arm, but Johnny kisses him before he can lift a finger.

“Fuck, wait, lemme...” Mark breaks the kiss to clamber down Johnny’s body. He’s barreling down whatever road they’re on with his foot all the way off the brakes, but he doesn’t have time to hesitate. He doesn’t want to hesitate anymore.

Johnny lets out a choked-off moan when Mark gets him out of his jeans and runs a thumb up the length of his cock through his underwear. Mark stops at the sound, at the sight of Johnny’s face flushed pink. He lets out a breath.

“Whoa,” he says, “you look amazing right now.”

Johnny offers him a genuine smile from above, leaning back on his elbows. “If only you could see yourself down there, Mark Lee.”

“Dude,” Mark replies, blushing; Johnny saying his name holds a whole new kind of power now. His brain goes a little haywire trying to think of something to say back, so he just ducks down until his nose is touching the base of Johnny’s dick, pressing his mouth to the fabric.

It goes quickly from there—Johnny hisses when Mark’s tongue circles the tip, drops his head back when Mark takes him all the way down. After a while, Mark stops to catch his breath, and Johnny surges forward to kiss him fiercely.

There’s a dark stone resting at the bottom of Mark’s stomach as he draws beautiful sounds out of Johnny’s open mouth. No matter how all-consuming his arousal is, he can feel the presence of the lava lamp behind him; he tries to tell himself that nine years of friendship with Johnny weren’t a waste, but it’s hard to believe when Johnny melts so easily, drawing Mark into his orbit like it was made for him.

Johnny warns him when he’s close, but Mark just taps twice on his thigh and keeps the pressure on, increasing his pace.

“Fuck, God, _Mark_ —” Johnny tenses as he comes down Mark’s throat, hips canting up a little. Mark swallows and he can hear Johnny laughing a quiet, overwhelmed laugh above him.

“C’mere,” Johnny says, and then they’re kissing again. Mark’s hungry for every brush of Johnny’s tongue against his, taking Johnny’s face in both of his hands.

“Still doing okay?” Johnny asks as he runs his hands up and down Mark’s back. Mark still has his shorts on—he was in too much of a rush to take them off.

“Yeah,” Mark replies. “I kinda can’t believe this is happening, but I’m super into it.”

Johnny smiles against his cheek. “Same here.”

He kisses down Mark’s throat, then carefully rearranges their position so Mark is lying down on the bed. With a smirk, he hooks a finger into the waistband of Mark’s shorts, letting it snap back against his skin.

“Why aren’t you naked yet?” he teases as Mark rubs at the tender spot.

“Hold your horses,” Mark shoots back. “Maybe I was waiting for you to help.” Johnny laughs in earnest, planting a kiss on each of Mark’s knees.

“You’re so cute.”

 _“Dude.”_ Mark giggles because he can’t help himself, and Johnny slides his shorts and underwear down in one motion.

It’s unreal watching Johnny’s eyes slide shut as he mouths at Mark’s cock, dragging his lips up the side of it and making Mark shiver. He barely manages to get Mark in his mouth before Mark’s whimpering, high-pitched and breathy, at how _good_ it feels.

But a wave of something uneasy washes over Mark as he watches Johnny suck him off. He can’t keep his mind from getting ahead of the situation, already fighting back the panic and dread of having to let Johnny go. Suddenly Johnny feels so far away down there, in between Mark’s legs, and Mark finds himself reaching for Johnny’s cheek to slow him down.

“Everything okay?” Johnny asks, looking up.

Mark nods. “Yeah. C’mere a second.”

Johnny does, climbing back onto the bed next to him. Mark leans up to kiss him heart-stoppingly slow, the kind of kiss that he hopes will convey the fear pressing down on him and his need for another pair of hands to hold it at bay.

Johnny just touches him, hands skimming over Mark’s sides and catching on his hip bones. He’s still breathing hard, wrapping Mark in the haze of his desire, and before Mark knows it he’s licking hot into Johnny’s mouth again as their bare skin comes into contact. A hand slips down to take hold of Mark’s cock, and Mark arches into it; Johnny doesn’t stop kissing him for a second as he starts stroking firmly, languidly. It’s a little more friction than Mark is used to, but the slight sting is good and sharp, and it helps to tether his mind to the sensation of being touched.

“Need you,” Mark gasps into the hollow of Johnny’s cheek. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, but it feels like every molecule of his body is drowning in _need you, need you, need you_.

The look Johnny gives Mark is completely open, defenseless, a reminder of exactly how heavy these feelings are that have just been shaken up and poured into the air. He presses the bridges of their noses together and strokes Mark faster, never still for a moment, coiling Mark’s entire body tight like a spring—

_“Ahh!”_

Mark comes _hard_ , gripping Johnny’s shoulders. Johnny’s breath is warm and Mark immediately brings him in for another kiss as he comes down, head fuzzy from his release. It feels like a photograph, like the closing shot of a movie, like something Mark will think about when he’s trying to go to sleep. He holds onto it tightly.

“Mark,” Johnny murmurs, settling at Mark’s side with one arm slung over his chest.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to say it. Mark, Mark, Mark.”

Mark smiles and lifts Johnny’s forearm up to his mouth to drop a kiss there. His stomach churns in the silence.

“What are we gonna do?”

Johnny takes a deep breath, rubbing at his eyes. Mark hears the click of his throat as he swallows.

“I dunno.” His voice is soft, wrecked. “This sucks.”

“I know.”

Mark is momentarily distracted by the thought that he and Johnny haven’t even held hands yet, and his stomach jerks with butterflies at the idea of it. There are so many steps they’ve skipped, or done backward, or brushed aside.

“I don’t want you to go,” Mark says. Finally, the truth. The culmination of the entire summer right there, in six words.

“If I knew—” Johnny turns on his side to face Mark. “If I knew that things would work out like this...” He shakes his head.

“You would’ve stayed for me?”

“Well, yeah.”

Mark stares at the ceiling, brain whirring. “I—wow. That’s dope.”

Johnny’s answering laughter is sweet, and Mark looks over to see him grinning.

“Of course I would’ve.”

“Man.” Mark presses his lips together. “I mean, it’s not like you can call it off. I know how hard you worked to set everything up.”

“Maybe...Maybe I just won’t go for as long as I planned to.”

Mark props himself up on one elbow. “Wait, for real?”

Johnny mirrors him. “Well, we could...see how things go. How it is, with us. And if I feel like I need to come back, I can come back.”

“You’re serious?”

“I mean, if you’re willing.” Johnny traces Mark’s cheekbone with his knuckle. “We could spend the next six days trying out whatever this is, and then go from there.”

The light from the lava lamp is hitting Johnny’s face just right, all pink and dreamy, and Mark really does love him, he thinks. He loves him in an immovable, time-tested way, the kind of love that’s always right in the next room if he needs it.

“Does that mean you’re staying over?”

Johnny inches toward his lips. “Does that mean yes?”

“Yeah.” Mark nods. “It does.”

They kiss again, and Mark’s stopped counting how many times their lips have met tonight, but he knows he'll remember this one. He can feel Johnny smiling against his mouth, and he can’t help but smile back; their teeth clack together and Johnny’s laughter sounds the same as it always has all these years.

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/jooniedimpss)
> 
> credit to [sneaky](https://twitter.com/sneakethsnek) for johnny's "you're burning me up" line! she is so sweet and helpful and also a johnmark master--I would highly recommend her stuff!! <3


End file.
